Mouth of the Amazon

Flowing more than 6400 kilometers across Brazil, the Amazon River originates in the Peruvian Andes. Second in length only to the Nile River, the Amazon carries with it huge amounts of sediments picked up from lands it crosses. On average, the Amazon deposits three million tons of sediment every day into the Atlantic Ocean. This outpouring of water and sediment is so vast that the salt content and color of the Atlantic Ocean are altered for a distance of several hundred kilometers from the mouth of the river.